User:Cheekyperson

Magyarization: It grieves me to see this subject so hotly debated. The manipulation of names by newly dominant governments whether legal or not (and many of them simply legalize themselves), is a practice which goes hand in hand with 'conquering'. I resist it and reject the procedure absolutely, but since this will not abolish it then let us look at the 'practical aspects' of the process. Before we begin I would tend to agree with the writer who says there are several different types of 'magyarization' as there are with any type of similar manipulation of names for the benefit of the governing power. The voluntary variation is quite understandable, has many benefits for the individual concerned (or else he/she would not go through with it) and is known in my country as 'Naturalisation'. This seems to make it pretty neutral and also takes some of the guilt away from the governing power. However there are some more insidious aspects to the procedure which ought to be brought to attention. Firstly manipulation of people's names for whatever reason is part of the ethnic cleansing process, and is a precursor to racial discrimination and condemned by the United Nations.(!) Secondly it is a 'grooming' process which aligns or attempts to align names more closely to the usual names found in the registers of any country and to submerge or obscure the real origins of the people involved. This may not be directly linked to the ethnic cleansing methods mentioned above but it is definitely linked to the business of tampering with the population statistics in a region. After all one or two generations 'down the line' who knows the real origins of the names of many members of a country's registers. All this considered it is well to note that the original forms of a name if carefully recorded do serve to preserve the history of families to some extent. The sad thing is that many people will fail to record or even remember, as time goes on, the significance of such changes. Finally the more aware people are of all these considerations, (and people in most populations are not easily hoodwinked by such nationalist practices) the less is the impact of the government subterfuge being used and as a result the less seriously are such governments taken in any aspect of their duties because of their antics in this process.